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Munich Exposed – part 11
- Retro-Pop aus Thailand: Chris Menist im Interview - 20. September 2011
- Thank you for rocking so hard! - 12. April 2011
- Brit Jazz Week – Soweto Kinch and the poetry of jazz - 21. März 2011
Der Blick auf München von außen – oder: zany rants of a non-Münchner Mädchen.
I’m really looking forward to seeing some Hamburgers pointing their finger at Munich going like ‘who’s a Fischkopf now huh?’
I had a reoccurring thought during these last few days – it was about the fact that most people in the world are water-deprived, while we Europeans seem to be water-abused. First it was the abundant snow, then it was this – this heavy hydration, which has been going on for 40 days and 40 nights and it definitely won’t stop until all the ice caps will have melted.
Yes, it seems like those little March clouds, following the example of those cute spring lambs growing into stupid sheep, have transformed into full-blown thunderstorms. There are fewer and fewer bikes on the street, fewer and fewer tourists staring at the Glockenspiel and less and less delicious Bavarian strawberries; more and more umbrellas in all the shops (and they seem to get more expensive by the day), more and more frustrated farmers and a lot of great business for all the travel agencies.
So I’m seriously thinking about preparing for a new deluge. I’ll buy a pair of those really high rubber boots, get a fishing license (because certainly even the end of the world must be carefully organized in Bayern) and just wait for the dystopia to happen. I can’t wait to see the pugs growing fins – because from now on, instead of going for a walk on the Isar, they’ll have to go for a swim. Did you hear about those walking fish they’ve recently found? Well I, for one, am ready to welcome our cold-blooded, funny-smelling aquatic overlords. Resistance is futile.
Even the newspapers, after a whole month of obsessive biergarten material, (“Munich’s Prettiest Biergartensâ€,†Top 50 Biergartensâ€, “My favourite places to drink beer this summer†etc.) started predicting doom, mainly because of the recent sightings of Hochwasser throughout all of Bayern.
And indeed, the world is coming to an end, especially when considering that this week I saw a herd of sheep candidly grazing in the middle of the Englischer Garten. Now what exactly are those sheep doing there, I don’t know, (replacing the tourists maybe?) but what I do know it that being a shepherd and owning a Mercedes G 230 AND getting to drive it through a city park must mean you’re really baaaad (or baaarilliant, just like this pun here.)
Anyway, back to our own sheep, also known as the puzzling  Münchner behaviour patterns. There are some that I previously missed, so let me just lay them out for you here.
1. Hand-painted Filmplakate
Now why would anyone in the whole wide world want to see a mutilated portrait of Sarah Jessica Parker’s already damaged face? And is this like an official job, ‘movie poster human photocopier’? This should be a form of art, not advertising – nowadays we have Adobe products for that.
2. Michael Jackson’s shared memorial
The lower half of the first statue in Promenadeplatz, seriously? Is THAT the only place they could find? I mean I don’t even know who the guy they stole the pedestal from was (I think he was a composer), but if he saw this, he’d be pissed. Anyone would be pissed, even Michael Jackson. Why didn’t they go for this one, it would’ve been far more appropriate. And they just won’t give up, will they – do they really think Michael Jackson’s soul is reading all those letters in German in his neverlandesque version of heaven?
3. Common sense: exiting a building/shop/café
It works well in the subway, but something intriguing happens once people reach upper grounds, and it all ends in a clusterfuck. Why is it that, when faced with a door, everyone needs to get in/get out at the same time? We all know the rule, those who are inside must go out first, basically in order to make room. But no, the passion for senseless crowding always prevails and forces us to lose a lot of time and patience trapped in this unnecessary process.
4. Elusive Mülltonne
Is it maybe because city officials (or city planners or whoever is in charge of this) are scared of bombs? I’m really annoyed with carrying around apple stubs or banana peels (or whatever it is that I have just devoured and its remains suddenly turn into ‘disgusting garbage’) for 10 minutes or more, until I find the first (usually crammed) wastebasket. Sometimes I have to walk along an entire street until I find one of these mythical beings – and when I do, they tend to look like some meth user’s teeth, scanty and dirty but invaluable.
5. License to live
I’m pretty sure that James Bond acquired his license to kill in Bayern. Where else could he have found a commission that specializes in this exact type of permission?
So why do I also need a hunter’s permit if I only want to fish? Does fishing imply that I’d also find pleasure in killing bunnies? If I were to get a really useful permit, it would be one that would allow me to fly a zeppelin (because I really don’t want to pay 200 euro for 40 minutes spent above Munich in this one.)
The funniest (and most unpleasant) fact about licenses is that they take your driver’s license away if they catch you parking your bike in a wrong place, or even if you cross the street at the red light. It’s preposterous – what do they take away from people who don’t have them in the first place? A lock from their hair maybe, that would make as much sense.
Alright, I feel better now; thanks for reading and please do enjoy the first snapshots of the controlled flooding apocalypse.
Also, the comment box is always a nice place to let your thoughts hang out with other people’s.
Bis gleich!
LATER EDIT: OMG SUN!
No, don’t fall for it, the sun is out only to spite us.
3 days of summer and then the watery peril will resume itself.
Or the opening of this article will be in vain.
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